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our first baby Benjamin James 11 lbs 7 oz Born: 12/15 |
| carrieann on twitter |
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so things are starting to get into a routine... especially after work. come home, feed the dog, take her to the dog park, watch her turn from yellow to brown, bring back dog and give her a bath, eat dinner. :) she's yet to come home NOT a muddy mess. but at least I know she's enjoying it! i'm trying to organize some friends to join me out at the theater/restaurant near my house this week... maybe thursday night. otherwise, i am planning on visiting the smithsonian on saturday on my own... then maybe sunday go visit the spy museum :) should be fun... need to find out what else is going on this weekend. it definitely rains more out here... i have yet to find a time when the ground is not mushy. i just hope my carpet survives. other than that, nothing exciting going on. christmas is coming soon... and after moving and traveling, i can safely say i am officially broke. but i do have christmas decorations that will be going up sometime this week. now i just need to train lily NOT to eat the tree. yikes.
| posted at 7:29 AM ~ comments (0) |
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well the party didn't happen, so i just hung out with jackie and craig in grosse pointe for the evening... it was fun to see them. then i woke up early this morning and made the trek back home. this time, the traffic and weather was much better... and i made it home in 9hrs instead of 12! i can definitely handle that trip. so now i'm home... and laundry is calling. work tomorrow... bleh. but i'm looking forward to some fun times this weekend... and laura may be coming to visit soon! :) but for now... time to relax with the laundry...
| posted at 9:36 PM ~ comments (0) |
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this weekend has been fun! it was a rough long ride... what normally takes 8-9 hours took 12 HOURS... i didn't get home til 5am thursday morning :( but i made it, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with my family. then i hung out with laura and friends on friday night, and had a GREAT time. learned how to play texas hold 'em poker with members of the band changes... hopefully they will come tour out in d.c. so i can hear them live! they were a great bunch of guys... and hopefully that's not the last time i get to see them :) tonight i have plans to visit with craig and jackie at a joint bachelor-bachelorette party for a friend of theirs. so that should be interesting. and then early tomorrow i start the trek back home. long weekend, but it's been a fun one :)
| posted at 2:45 PM ~ comments (0) |
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my textamerica account provides a way to show your most recent image... so i added that to the side, in addition to the snapshots. i'll try to take more photos... but i'm not sure how many i'm allowed to send via email, before it starts costing me an arm and a leg. hmmm.. i'm also looking into a better service that i can email the cam images to, that doesn't have so many ads... but in the meantime, i'll try and take lots of photos... camera phones are fun! it's great to have a camera at your fingertips all the time. i have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow... so be prepared for a couple of photos documenting the trip. not too many though, since it gets dark quickly. it's about 9 hours to michigan from here, with holiday traffic, so i'll have plenty of time to kill :)
| posted at 10:54 PM ~ comments (0) |
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thanks to scott at work, he pointed me to a fun site that i can upload my camera phone photos to, instantly! so now you can find some fun photos over at textamerica:
carrie ann: version dc
:) this should be fun... i've only taken three photos since i got my phone on saturday... but it's pretty easy, so i'll try to take more! :)
carrie ann: version dc
:) this should be fun... i've only taken three photos since i got my phone on saturday... but it's pretty easy, so i'll try to take more! :)
| posted at 12:25 PM ~ comments (0) |
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it's clean. everything is put away. and i have groceries :) so i finally had time to take photos of the new place...
my apartment in virginia
i'll take photos of the outside and the dog park when i get a chance tomorrow, and post those... for now, you can see the new place all put together! :) and it's bed time... lots of work to do tomorrow!! and i'm going home to michigan on wednesday for thanksgiving... oh the fun never stops...
my apartment in virginia
i'll take photos of the outside and the dog park when i get a chance tomorrow, and post those... for now, you can see the new place all put together! :) and it's bed time... lots of work to do tomorrow!! and i'm going home to michigan on wednesday for thanksgiving... oh the fun never stops...
| posted at 10:56 PM ~ comments (0) |
well, i'm almost done with my apartment. just gotta clean up... and then i'll take some photos and post them. i got a new phone, and it has a camera on it... so even though i am sad i lost my other phone, it will be fun to post the photos of my dc friends :) so it worked out... that seems to be the trend. something crappy happens, but then it works out better than before. i just wish i could skip the crappy part... :)
| posted at 3:51 PM ~ comments (0) |
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well, two out of my four friends wound up not being able to make it, so they were missed. i had an ok time with everyone else... but at the end of the evening, i must have dropped my phone in the cab, because it is no longer in my possession. dammit. and when you just moved into a new city, and don't know your way around, or even where the store is to buy a new phone... and you can't call your friends in the area because their numbers are IN that phone... it's rough. so today will be spent running around trying to get a new cell phone. *sigh* it's been a rough week. i'm tired of having drama... i'm ready for things to just freakin settle down and stop going wrong.
| posted at 10:13 AM ~ comments (0) |
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to give a good idea of my workplace... today they went out on lunch and secretly got me a chocolate birthday cake, which they just gave me and had the whole office singing 'happy birthday' to me :) i was also informed of the friday sing-a-long ritual, in which someone puts on some bad music every friday at 5pm. good thing i leave at 4 ;) i'm likin this place :)
| posted at 2:17 PM ~ comments (0) |
you know your day is going to be a great one when you get to work early on your 2nd day, are the first one there, and lock yourself out of the building. doh. i left my access card in my car, which was in a locked garage (that you need the card to enter), and i left my phone on my desk at home. *sigh* i had to wander around until the next person that came into work arrived to let me back in. i rock. yay for birthdays ;)
| posted at 7:48 AM ~ comments (0) |
happy birthday to me today! i'm 26... officially closer to 30 than to 20... wow. :)
it's been an interesting couple of days. i still don't have the internet working at my apartment, despite my request to have it on wednesday afternoon. oh well... the trip has been just that... a trip! on tuesday morning, the guy that was supposed to help me load my truck no called/no showed, so my dad and I loaded the uhaul ourselves. luckily, my dad rocks, and didn't complain at all :) the drive down went smoothly until we were ready to stop for the night. bad planning on my part, i didn't make a reservation for a motel, figuring we would stop whenever we got tired of driving, wherever that may be. i didn't plan on there being no vacancies!! so we drove from 11am on tuesday until 3am on wednesday... it was a long night. then we woke right back up at 6:30am to finish the drive, so that we were there in time for the moving guys. but we made it, and had the whole truck unloaded in a half hour :)
my first day of work was an interesting one... i like the people i work with. they are a friendly group... not as welcoming as my group was at hk... but still good. i will like working there... and man, did they need another programmer. i'm swamped with work, and it's only my 2nd day! the apartment is great... bigger than i thought it was going to be... and the dog park is AWESOME. so many people there, great dogs that lily has made good friends with, and it's lit at night, so i don't have to worry about rushing home to squeeze those last few moments of sunlight out of the day. :)
all in all, i'm exhausted from the move. i am supposed to round people up to go out tonight, but i'm so tired, and none of my friends out here have returned my calls, save one. so worse comes to worse, it will be just the two of us hitting up the town to celebrate the big 2-6... nothing fancy. still have stuff to clean... everything is unpacked and put away, except for the moving boxes that need to be thrown away, and all the stuff i need to put in storage. nothing major... so this weekend will be a good one to relax in. hopefully i'll have the internet up and running tonight... i don't know what i'll do this weekend if it's not! :(
it's been an interesting couple of days. i still don't have the internet working at my apartment, despite my request to have it on wednesday afternoon. oh well... the trip has been just that... a trip! on tuesday morning, the guy that was supposed to help me load my truck no called/no showed, so my dad and I loaded the uhaul ourselves. luckily, my dad rocks, and didn't complain at all :) the drive down went smoothly until we were ready to stop for the night. bad planning on my part, i didn't make a reservation for a motel, figuring we would stop whenever we got tired of driving, wherever that may be. i didn't plan on there being no vacancies!! so we drove from 11am on tuesday until 3am on wednesday... it was a long night. then we woke right back up at 6:30am to finish the drive, so that we were there in time for the moving guys. but we made it, and had the whole truck unloaded in a half hour :)
my first day of work was an interesting one... i like the people i work with. they are a friendly group... not as welcoming as my group was at hk... but still good. i will like working there... and man, did they need another programmer. i'm swamped with work, and it's only my 2nd day! the apartment is great... bigger than i thought it was going to be... and the dog park is AWESOME. so many people there, great dogs that lily has made good friends with, and it's lit at night, so i don't have to worry about rushing home to squeeze those last few moments of sunlight out of the day. :)
all in all, i'm exhausted from the move. i am supposed to round people up to go out tonight, but i'm so tired, and none of my friends out here have returned my calls, save one. so worse comes to worse, it will be just the two of us hitting up the town to celebrate the big 2-6... nothing fancy. still have stuff to clean... everything is unpacked and put away, except for the moving boxes that need to be thrown away, and all the stuff i need to put in storage. nothing major... so this weekend will be a good one to relax in. hopefully i'll have the internet up and running tonight... i don't know what i'll do this weekend if it's not! :(
| posted at 7:26 AM ~ comments (0) |
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since i just switched webmail email providers from hotmail to yahoo, this article on the webmail war posted by slashdot was interesting to me... still not switching to gmail, but good to see yahoo is only going to improve! :)
| posted at 10:10 PM ~ comments (0) |
i am having a really hard time getting everything packed. as the days get nearer to leaving, i am overwhelmed with sadness. and then the doubts creep in... maybe i made a mistake leaving... maybe i am setting myself up for failure... i just can't bring myself to finish it. but tomorrow night, my dad is flying in, so i better get my act together... i really can't turn back now. i just really hope i made the right decision...
| posted at 2:32 PM ~ comments (0) |
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ouch. my head is throbbing. which is the usual indication that i had way too much to drink last night. i went barhopping around champaign for the final goodbye... went to jupiter's, guidos, and the high dive... and everyone wished me a good farewell. and although i held back most of the tears... it was a rough night last night. brad started me off on the tequila shots, courtesy of sandra, who couldn't make it. a couple more of those later, and i was shakin it hardcore on the dance floor. doh. i hope i didn't embarrass myself too badly, bein a white girl :) it has been very hard to tell everything goodbye... way harder than i anticipated.
here are the drunken photos from last night... goodbye c-u!
here are the drunken photos from last night... goodbye c-u!
| posted at 11:53 AM ~ comments (0) |
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yeah... william was right. firefox rules. it's a new browser... and i love it. it loads faster than ie, doesn't have the microsoft security flaws... and just has a bunch of fun features (like the tabs, the text find, the rss feeds, etc). i'm hooked. some things still need to be tweaked with it... and obviously, since microsoft doesn't own it, it can't do everything that ie can with the windows operating systems... but it's still great. i made it my default browser. never thought i'd see the day ;)
| posted at 12:04 PM ~ comments (0) |
oy... i made it most of the day on wednesday without any tears... but about 10 minutes before i was to leave, the waterworks started, and i got a ton of hugs :) it was a great day... i will miss hk a lot. i came home and finally started packing... and spent the majority of yesterday packing. i made a big dent, and so now i can take a breather tonight and party it up one last time in champaign! of course, mixing alochol with a bunch of sappiness... might not have been the best plan in the world... but i'm looking forward to it! haven't started cleaning yet... that's my project for sunday/monday, as i get everything put away in the truck. the driving starts late tuesday morning... should be an interesting one... and it's coming up quick! 4 days to moving day!
| posted at 7:38 AM ~ comments (0) |
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i hate goodbyes. today will be so sad... saying goodbye to people that have been so great to me. i can feel the tears a-brewin, and it's only 7:30. *sigh* i will miss my office... it was fun having a space to call my own. i'll miss the breakfasts, and the smoothie breaks... i'll miss the chocolate chip cookies that are half-baked in the cafeteria, i'll miss bugging william every morning at 7:30... i'll miss the stinky bathroom... gabe's half eaten breakfasts... brent and mitch's morning breakfast routines... ordering pizzas for the ecicfug meetings... the dings that have now become soley for vista's down times and scare the crap out of me... everything. *sigh* sad day... sayin bye to hk.
| posted at 8:41 AM ~ comments (0) |
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i'm so busy, it's crazy. tomorrow is my last day of work, and i'm still tying up all my loose ends. one week from today and i'll be on the road, with all my stuff in tow. haven't started packing yet, but i did start throwing out things that i no longer need. i anticipate a lot of long nights ahead of me... packing, cleaning, organizing... bleh. these are the days when i wish we had a dog daycare in the area, so that i could drop lily off for a couple hours while i did some work. otherwise, she just makes me feel guilty, and i keep stopping to play with her. and of course, i don't enjoy that at all ;) anyway... it is starting to finally hit me that i'm leaving illinois. it hadn't really sunk in until last night when i started taping up boxes and looking around... realizing that in a week, i'll be out of here. when i left michigan, it was much more sudden... and didn't really hit me until i reached illinois. and i've been talking about leaving for so long, it's hard to believe the moments are finally here. no more preparing... i'm moving. am i ready for my new job? i'll soon find out. i'm nervous as hell... i'm scared to go somewhere new again, where i don't know my way around. luckily, i have friends who are more than happy to show me my way... but it still scares the heck out of me. i'm nervous about fitting in at work, about imposing on my friends, about making sure lily is happy and ok, about affording to live out there... everything. but here i go... it's a nervous excitement... i can't wait :)
| posted at 1:04 PM ~ comments (0) |
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only beat by one city... dc came in at number two for the best place for singles (rated by forbes). woohoo! i can't wait! ;)
| posted at 7:54 PM ~ comments (0) |
so i didn't get much done... but i had a nice weekend. got a new wireless router and installed it, so that i won't have to worry about my stupid cable wires running all over the place in my new apartment. i also took lily to the dogpark yesterday and today... it was perfect outside for it. she ran around for a solid two hours each day... made some new best friends :) it was so fun to see her be able to run around like crazy without worrying about her stupid tie-out running out and choking her. i can't wait to get her to the new place, where she can do that every day :) speaking of that, this week will be sad... my last day of work is wednesday, and my "goodbye champaign" party is friday... i anticipate lots of alcohol on friday... which may induce lots of tears. but hopefully not! it will be great to see everyone one last time :) i haven't started packing yet... but i'll have more time after wednesday... and seeing as how it only took me two days to pack to get down here, i'm not worried :)
| posted at 7:06 PM ~ comments (0) |
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man... i thought i had drama. poor jackie... in the past year alone... she has had to deal with an overseas boyfriend who she then married, so had a big wedding to plan in five months time... then in the middle of planning that wedding, her aunt's leukemia worsens and she doesn't pull through. now, only three months after her aunt's death, her grandfather (the father of her aunt) is now in the icu, and is critical. so her mom might lose her sister AND her father within a couple of months, on top of having her daughter get married to someone she just met a couple months ago, AND her son (jackie's brother) is getting married in january, so they are in the midst of planning THAT wedding right now, too. man. makes my wimpy car accident look like a cake walk.
good thoughts to you and your family jackie... hope your grandfather pulls through...
good thoughts to you and your family jackie... hope your grandfather pulls through...
| posted at 11:25 AM ~ comments (0) |
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wow... a week from today and i'll be done with my work at hk. how sad. i hate goodbyes... but i do get to go out to lunch next wednesday with everyone for some good mexican food :) that, and i am planning a night out next friday, and inviting everyone to help me say goodbye to champaign-urbana. should be a good time. sad, but good. i don't know when i will see everyone again... not having any family down here, and not having known everyone for that long... i don't know if there will be any occasions to visit. but hopefully this isn't a final goodbye, and it won't be too sad.
on the bright side, that means two weeks til i'm sitting in my apartment in dc! wow... time flies. i finally made out a schedule for the next two weeks, and planned out all the tasks i had to do for each day, so that i could quit stressing about how i was going to get it all done before moving day. so now it's just a matter of doing them all :) two weeks, and it will all be over... imagine that. so if you are in dc, i'll be there soon! my birthday is also that week... two weeks from friday (the big 2-6), and i plan on celebrating that night! woohoo! woodchuck anyone? ;)
on the bright side, that means two weeks til i'm sitting in my apartment in dc! wow... time flies. i finally made out a schedule for the next two weeks, and planned out all the tasks i had to do for each day, so that i could quit stressing about how i was going to get it all done before moving day. so now it's just a matter of doing them all :) two weeks, and it will all be over... imagine that. so if you are in dc, i'll be there soon! my birthday is also that week... two weeks from friday (the big 2-6), and i plan on celebrating that night! woohoo! woodchuck anyone? ;)
| posted at 9:03 PM ~ comments (0) |
i voted yesterday, and although some of you know who i voted for, i don't usually share that info. regardless of who i voted for, kerry conceded this morning around 11am... so bush is re-elected and now the republican party also controls the house and the senate. crazy. i'm glad everything got figured out before i got to d.c... i'm sick of people asking me who i am voting for :)
| posted at 2:52 PM ~ comments (0) |
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finishing up the plans for the move... need to find a hotel chain that is dog friendly on our way... confirm the times for the movers... make sure all utilities will be on... and then the packing fun begins. things are almost all figured out... then it's just a matter of cleaning and packing all my stuff. i've only got this weekend and next weekend to get it all done... my dad is flying in on the 15th so that we can leave on that tuesday. two weeks from today, and i'll be on the road to d.c... so much to do, so much to do. luckily, i managed to get the room in the basement finally clean of all the cat nonsense. i was really worried about it, but this morning it was completely gone. *phew* still have to take the cats to the vet to get weighed, so that they can be prescribed some good drugs for the trip. they do not do well in the car. so that will be interesting... me, two cats, and lily in my little focus. better than trying to cram them in the front of the moving truck! ok, back to work... only have 8 days left at the job here... still have to wrap up a lot of loose ends before i go...
| posted at 7:29 AM ~ comments (0) |